I've seen quite a few products that start out as straight password manager utilities and then branch out to manage personal data other than passwords—driver's licenses, passports, that sort of thing. SplashData's SplashID 8.1, on the other hand, started as a repository for general personal data, and then evolved to manage passwords as well. This latest edition has a new look and some useful new features, but also drops some features from the previous edition.

You can use SplashID for free, as long as you stick to just one device. If you spring for a $19.99 per year Pro subscription, you can use it in any browser and on all of your Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices. That's $10 less than Sticky Password Premium and $20 less than Dashlane 4. It's a good deal, though LastPass 4.0 Premium costs even less, at just $1 per month.

By default, SplashID syncs your data across all of your devices using secure cloud storage. Depending on your paranoia level, that online storage might raise red flags. You can choose to keep your data completely local, performing any necessary syncing by exporting your main device's data and importing it to other devices. Balancing security and convenience, you can also set SplashID to only sync via your home Wi-Fi network. There's also an option to make specific records local-only.

Getting Started Before shelling out for a Pro subscription, you'll probably want to take the free version for a spin. The first thing to do is pick which device you want to use for your free trial. Note that configuring it for browser-based access counts as a device; if you do that, you won't be able to any of the platform-specific apps without paying for Pro. For testing, I started out using the Windows app.

On first launch, the app asks for the email account you want to use with SplashID. Next it prompts you to create and confirm a password, and optionally enter a password hint. I was mildly shocked to see that the master password, the one that protects all your data, must be a minimum of three characters. Three! Ignore that prompt and create a strong password that you can remember, but that nobody would guess.

That's it. You're ready to start using the app, at least on the one device. At any time you can upgrade to Pro and extend password management to all of your apps and browsers.

One more thing. Once you've finished setting up the account, there's an option to replace your master password with a swipe pattern, similar to what you might see on the Android lockscreen. I don't recommend this unless you only use SplashID on mobile devices that are set to automatically lock after inactivity and that have a PIN or other lockscreen protection.

Adding PasswordsLastPass 4.0 Premium, RoboForm Everywhere 7, and the majority of other password managers install a browser extension that lets them automatically capture your credentials when you log in to a secure site. For SplashID, website passwords are just one of many data types to save, so automatic capture isn't a priority. My contact at the company did say that the next version might add this feature. It's worth noting that version 7 did include a browser extension, but only for Internet Explorer.

As with F-Secure Key and KeePass 2.34, creating a new password entry in SplashID is a matter of filling the appropriate data in a form. Click the plus-sign button to start creating a new entry, and choose the Web Logins data type. I've found that the best way to ensure using the correct URL and credentials is to actually log in to the site in your browser, and copy/paste the items into SplashID.

You can append a note to the password entry, if you wish, and even add a file attachment. If you're creating a new account, you can have SplashID generate a password for you. By default, entries in this category get a world globe icon, but you can choose from a collection of more than 300 icons, or add your own icon. The icon collection includes logos for banks, cars, airlines, credit card companies, and more, as well as for popular websites.

Logging In Using your saved passwords is simple enough. Just select the item in SplashID and click the Login button at top right. SplashID launches your default browser and fills in the saved credentials.

When you visit a site for which you've saved login credentials, most password managers automatically log in automatically, or offer to do so. Without a browser plug-in, SplashID can't do that. However, the username, password, and all other fields each have a button that copies the corresponding data to the clipboard. If you encounter a two-page login, like SplashID's own, it's easy enough to copy/paste the password for the second page.

LastPass, RoboForm, and a few others handle non-standard login pages by letting you enter all needed data and then capture all fields before you proceed to log in. SplashID can't do that, but each password entry does contain five extra fields that you can manually fill with any needed ancillary data. Logging in this way definitely requires use of the clipboard, of course.

As with KeePass, you can store application passwords too. KeePass goes above and beyond, actually launching the application and filling in the credentials. SplashID doesn't perform application password management, but you can copy/paste saved credentials into the app.

Password Generator SplashID's password generator has some odd behaviors. The first strange thing I noticed is that a Generate button appears next to many fields that aren't passwords. For example, in a bank account entry, I could generate a random account number, PIN, bank name, and branch name. Who'd want to do that?

By default, the password generator includes all character types, but the default password length is just eight characters. Password Genie 5.2 defaults to 10 characters, and F-Secure Key to 12. KeePass has the highest default password length, at 20 characters. I strongly advise you to go into Settings and raise SplashID's default to 16 characters. You don't have to remember these passwords, after all.

When you click the Generate button, the password generator appears in a pop-up window. Here you can change the length and exclude some character sets if the website in question has a password policy that requires it. Oddly, there's an option to choose High, Medium, or Low strength. I don't advise choosing anything but High strength. Clicking Generate gets you a list of passwords that you can choose from. Click OK and the field, password or not, gets filled.

I did notice that when I changed the available character sets in the popup password generator, my changes affected the defaults. The next time I used the generator, those changes carried over. However, changes to the password length did not.

Types and Categories Passwords are just one of almost 20 types of data you can record in SplashID. It's a broad selection, including such things as clothing sizes, prescriptions, frequent flyer memberships, and credit card numbers. These entries are just static data; you can't use them to fill Web forms. Each type has up to 10 data fields, as well as a default icon. If you don't find what you want among these, no problem! You can create your own type.

Each new record goes into the Unfiled category, by default. You can set it to Business or Personal, or to a category you define yourself. Marking a record as local-only or making it a favorite adds it to the corresponding category.

Initially, the app's main display shows all categories and all types. You can filter to limit the display to a specific category, type, or both. There's also search box to help find a specific entry. Each character you type narrows the list.

Security Dashboard New since I last reviewed SplashID, the Dashboard offers an instant overview of your password security, flagging weak, duplicate, and old passwords. There's a button for Advanced Analysis; I found that clicking it flagged a couple additional passwords that were long and contained all character sets, but were built from common words.

Clicking the View & Fix button next to Repeated Passwords, Weak Passwords, or Old Passwords gets you a detailed list of the problem items. However, if you want to fix them you'll have to do it manually. The similar feature in LastPass and Dashlane lets you sort all of your passwords by strength and click a link to go fix bad ones. LastPass, Dashlane, and LogMeOnce Password Management Suite Premium can actually automate the process of updating passwords, for supported sites.

The Dashboard also offers some simple statistics. It reports the total number of records, types, and categories, and graphs the number of records over time. It also lists the five most recent backups, with a button to view backup details and, if necessary, download the backed-up data.

Secure Sharing Also new since my last review, SplashID now supports secure sharing of passwords and other stored data. When you click the Share button, SplashID asks for the email address of the recipient and a password to protect the data. By default, it includes the password in the email, which doesn't seem terribly secure to me. I recommend conveying the password separately.

The recipient must click a link in the email and enter the password. This opens a one-use Web page that lists all the details of the shared record. A recipient who already uses SplashID can't directly incorporate the data, and there's no option to share an entry without making the password visible, the way you can in Dashlane, LastPass, or LogMeOnce.

Mobile Editions On Android and iOS, SplashID looks and acts almost exactly the same as it does under Windows or Mac. However, websites open in an internal browser. Some competing products manage passwords using the device's built-in browser, or any arbitrary browser.

The only minor difference in the mobile editions is that the default view just shows the list of items at left and item detail at right. The far left menu, visible in Windows as long as SplashID's window is wide enough, only appears on demand. Under Android, it slides in as a transient floating menu. On an iOS device, tapping the hamburger menu icon reveals that far left column, so it looks almost identical to the Windows version.

Passwords and More Most password managers automatically capture credentials as you log in, and replay them when you revisit the site. Many also serve to fill personal data in Web forms. SplashID 8.1 doesn't attempt these feats, though it can launch the browser and fill credentials in any standard login page. Its main strength is the ability to store many kinds of personal data and make this data available across all your devices. If that's what you want, give it a try.

If, on the other hand, you're looking for a fully automated password management experience, this isn't the product for you. Dashlane 4, LastPass 4, and Sticky Password Premium are the Editors' Choice winners in this category.

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Neil Rubenking served as vice president and president of the San Francisco PC User Group for three years when the IBM PC was brand new. He was present at the formation of the Association of Shareware Professionals, and served on its board of directors. In 1986, PC Magazine brought Neil on board to handle the torrent of Turbo Pascal tips submitted by readers. By 1990, he had become PC Magazine's technical editor, and a coast-to-coast telecommuter. His "User to User" column supplied readers with tips...
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